Apple released a statement today that their new web browser, Safari 4 has been downloaded by both Mac and Windows users over 11 million times in just three days of its full version release. Additional, data released by Apple indicates that at least 6 million of these 11 million downloads are from Windows users.

Safari 4 has been available in beta since February and Apple has touted the browser as the fastest and most innovative web browser ever to be released. Early reports indicate that Safari 4 is very fast, mostly in part to the Nitro JavaScript engine that can load web pages up to three times faster than IE 8 and Firefox 3. Users can get the Safari 4 download for free from the Apple website.

However, detractors are saying that this 11 million statistic posted by Apple is bogus and doesn’t prove the success of the new version of their web browser. The main reason? Mac owners were automatically updated with the browser over the last couple of days.